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Sep 22 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Judge Adrienne Wooten questioning John Davis about why he allowed thousands in TANF to go to Brett DiBiase for work he didn’t conduct and to pay for hotel services in New Orleans.
W: Why wasn’t that done (why didn’t you refer the matter to AG)?
D: My neglect.
#TheBackchannel
W: Is that neglect? If you knew about it?
D: That was a poor choice of words
W: That’s okay. (Pause)

But I still want my question answered.

(Pointedly:) Why. Did. You. Do. This?
Davis: (Long pause). Very, very bad judgement.

(Pause)

I shouldn’t have done it.
More on John Davis and the wrestlers in this story #TheBackchannel: mississippitoday.org/2022/04/07/mis…

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More from @ayewolfe

Anna Wolfe Profile picture
Sep 24
The latest texts released by Nancy New and now today by former Gov. Bryant come within a court battle about whether Bryant should have to produce all texts related to the USM-Favre volleyball project. Bryant wants to keep them private #TheBackchannel mississippitoday.org/2022/09/24/phi…
Bryant has released select text messages in an attempt to show that he had no idea Favre was using welfare money for the volleyball project in 2017. He suggests his appointed welfare director immediately committed $4m to the project without his knowledge.
Some of the most brow-raising new texts:

Bryant in 2019 after meeting with the new welfare director, Favre and New about volleyball funding:

“We are going to get there. This was a great meeting. But we have to follow the law. I am to old for Federal Prison. 😄😎”
Read 11 tweets
Anna Wolfe Profile picture
Sep 22
Former DHS director Davis is set to plead guilty to 2 federal and 18 state charges within the TANF scandal. New low-hanging federal charges deal not with the Brett Favre volleyball or concussion projects, but with payments to his WWE wrestler buddy Teddy: mississippitoday.org/2022/09/21/joh…
Four co-conspirators in the federal filing are unnamed. I identified them two ways, first by matching up the unnamed orgs/companies’ date of registration listed in the filing.
Org 1: MS 6/22/92
Org 2: MS 5/22/98
Company 1: Wyoming 6/25/18
Company 2: MS 5/11/2017 ImageImageImageImage
Org 1: Mississippi Community Education Center
Org 2: Family Resource Center
Company 1: Familiae Orientum LLC
Company 2: Priceless Ventures LLC Image
Read 6 tweets
Anna Wolfe Profile picture
Jul 29
Let’s dig into what Gov. Reeves said about the MDHS civil suit yesterday, less than a week after removing the attorney who crafted the litigation — the latest wrinkle in Mississippi’s welfare scandal.
 
This one is a bit wonky, but bear with me.
mississippitoday.org/2022/07/29/gov…
Both the Reeves admin and the attorney, Brad Pigott, say he was let go because he subpoenaed USM Athletic Foundation. The subpoena included their communication with NFL legend Brett Favre and former Gov. Phil Bryant, @MSTODAYnews first reported.
 mississippitoday.org/2022/07/13/phi…
In 2017, the foundation entered what attorneys call a sham lease to secure $5 million in welfare funds from a MDHS-funded nonprofit to build a volleyball stadium — a project inspired by Favre.
mississippitoday.org/2022/04/06/bre… Image
Read 32 tweets
Anna Wolfe Profile picture
Apr 5
Gov. Phil Bryant screenshotted my tweet below—which touched on my investigation into welfare in the spring of 2019, at the fever pitch of the largest taxpayer theft in state history—and sent it to MDHS Director John Davis. “How is she figuring this?” he asked. #TheBackchannel
My tweet contained a plain observation. In the poorest state, we left tens of millions of welfare funds unspent — something advocates had screamed about for years. I was digging around in the only public data available, limited and outdated, after MDHS had completely shut me out.
After a long, congenial intro call with the new MDHS spox, a former gov staffer and Supertalk exec, in Sept. 2018, where I rattled on about my personal values and intentions as a reporter, specifically in getting to the bottom of TANF, I never got a return call from her. ImageImageImageImage
Read 13 tweets
Anna Wolfe Profile picture
Oct 29, 2021
Throwback to “Anna this is about economic development plain and simple!!!” Remember, Brett Favre has other connections to the welfare scandal that still haven’t been fully explained.
He was at meetings where officials discussed funneling MDHS funding to a concussion research firm he sponsored and invested in. I reported his involvement months before the auditor revealed the $1.1m payment mississippitoday.org/2020/03/05/the…
That welfare payment to Prevacus (which prosecutors allege Nancy New made as a personal purchase of stock, not a “grant”) represents the largest portion of allegedly stolen money outlined in actual criminal indictments so far.
Read 4 tweets
Anna Wolfe Profile picture
Oct 29, 2021
“The child support system in Mississippi is f-cked up, and no one knows how to unf-ck it,” I reported last December.
Mississippi's privatized child support enforcement program is now under legislative scrutiny after @MS_DHS signed another 5-year contract. mississippitoday.org/2020/12/28/how…
Last fall I poured through federal data and spent over 12 hrs with the contractor's CEO to craft an original analysis of the program, which despite modernization and improvements in some metrics, continues to lag in the areas -- primarily collections -- that mean most to parents.
But the story isn't all about government plumbing. It's also about the fact that a private company can profit from a public service that touches half of kids in the state, a program low-income families are forced into if they dare access public assistance. mississippitoday.org/2020/12/29/who…
Read 12 tweets

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